Find answers about NY's uniqueness. Says one reader, "The city has been one large shopping mall with a false edifice of culture to trick those moving here into thinking they are part of the old New York City aura that is actually long long gone." [CR]

Regarding NY's diminishing uniqueness, good points all - except that these patterns are in place pretty much in every semi-successful city. I came back from London last year and if anything it was even worse - a vast museum inhabited by the rich, totally gentrified and dominated by the financial district, with the poor pushed out to the nether-regions. New York still feels more alive somehow.